So, here are two workshops – sponsored by the Chicago Headline Club – next week that you don’t want to miss.

1. On Tuesday, Jan. 24th there will be a workshop looking at the latest software and online tools to improve your reporting for the Congressional elections in March

Here’s a chance to learn about the latest gadgets and tools, and how to search for data about who gives money to whom and yet more info.The Knight News Innovation Lab at Northwestern University is putting on this training.

www.ilcampaign.org

When: Jan 24, 6pm. Where: Wieboldt Hall, Ray Conley Lounge, room 540, Northwestern University

340 E. Superior St, Chicago

2.You Can’t Record This, Take a Picture of That, and What Else?

Today almost everyone has a video camera in their pocket and in many cities local government uses cameras to monitor our streets. In our technology centered world the rules that govern citizens’ and journalists’ right to film, photograph and record audio are being challenged and constantly changing. These changes underscore the need for journalism and how fragile the protection the 1st Amendment provides.

This panel will bring together journalists, lawyers and public officials in an engaging discussion of the current political climate and the ongoing fights for free speech. This issue has many ethical consequences for the future of journalism and the role of seasoned journalists and citizen journalists and promises to be a thought provoking event. This event is sponsored by The McCormick Foundation and The Chicago Headline Club.

Featured Panelists:

- Garry F. McCarthy, Superintendent, Chicago Police Department – Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, Reporters Committee for Freedom of

the Press – Harry Grossman, Legal Director, ACLU Illinois

When:Wednesday, January 25, 2012 5-7 p.m. (includes post-reception)

Where:Loyola University Chicago (Water Tower Campus) Lewis Towers 111 East Pearson, Regents Hall, 16th Floor Chicago, IL 60611

Seating is limited. Please RSVP at http://tinyurl.com/shatteredlensloyola

If you have any questions, contact me – Steve@chicagoistheworld.org

Wading in the Water in a completely different context–Frances’ father and daughter in their waders volunteering to maintain the pond at Hawaii’s Pana’ewa Rainforest Zoo, America’s only natural rainforest zoo. Frances Kai-Hwa Wang | Contributor

Two years ago, my father’s choir at the University of Hawaii was invited to sing at a big international diversity concert at Lincoln Center in New York for MLK Day. Choirs from around the world had been invited to sing together, and a Hawaiian choir adds instant diversity with its multicultural population of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Portuguese, Caucasians and native Hawaiians. That summer, over a breakfast of Chinese pancakes and Portuguese sausage, my father told us about the difficulties he had had the night before at choir practice pronouncing the words in the spirituals that they were learning, “You have to say the words like a Negro,” he said.

Twelve-year-old Hao Hao gently corrected him: “African American. These days you should say African American.” (I bet Senator Reid wishes his grandchildren had told him this, too.)

My father did not know, “Oh, ok. You have to pronounce the words like an African American.” A seventy-year-old immigrant, he can barely get his mouth around the words.

My father continued to describe the scene at the previous night’s choir practice. Someone had asked, “Why are they wading in the water?” Not one person in this Hawaiian choir knew, not the professors or the mainlanders or even the choir director. They decided perhaps it is swampy in the South and there just is water everywhere.

Thirteen-year-old Mango explained, in shorthand, “To get away from the dogs.”

My father did not understand, “But dogs can swim.”

Mango continued, ever gently, “No, so the dogs can’t follow their scent.”

“Why don’t they want their dogs to go with them?”

“Not their dogs. They’re running away from slavery. The slaveowners’ dogs.”

“Oh!” a light went on in my father’s head, “Slavery!”

I was so impressed to watch my children gently, ever gently, patiently, without judgment or consternation, lean over the kitchen table with soft #2B pencils pouring over the music scores with my father. The girls explained to him that in spirituals, a lot of the songs are coded instructions on how to escape to freedom, for example, in “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” the drinking gourd refers to the Big Dipper and the North Star; in other songs, the River Jordan represents the Ohio River, the last river to cross before reaching freedom in Canada; and Canaan means Canada because once slaves made it to Canada, they could not be sent back, as they could from the northern states.

“One more question,” my father asked, “Why does it keep talking about ‘the children’? They took their children with them?”

“That’s the children of Israel. They are using the story of Exodus as code to talk about their own escape into freedom.”

I am moved to realize that what never occurred to an entire Hawaiian choir, with such a different population and history, is so straightforward and matter of fact for my children who have grown up an hour outside of Detroit; attended Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary; who have friends of many different races, ethnicities, cultures, religions, and languages; and who have been taught this history in school and at various MLK Day/Black History Month/Diversity Day programs.

I told this story last year to the Rev. Robert B. Jones at the University of Michigan MLK Day Youth Program where we were both speakers, and it reminded us both how important it is to learn about other people’s cultures — to taste their food and sing their songs and dance their dances — but to also back up that cultural taste test with a solid grounding in history and politics so that we fully appreciate its meaning and significance.

Frances Kai-Hwa Wang is a second-generation Chinese American from California who now divides her time between Michigan and the Big Island of Hawaii. She is a contributor for New America Media’s Ethnoblog, Chicagoistheworld.org, PacificCitizen.org, and InCultureParent.com. She is a popular speaker on Asian Pacific American and multicultural issues. Check out her Web site at franceskaihwawang.com, her blog at franceskaihwawang.blogspot.com, and she can be reached at fkwang888@gmail.com.

This article was originally published at annarbor.com. This article is adapted from a chapter in Frances Kai-Hwa Wang’s upcoming book.

My daughter Hao Hao once dressed as a bag of Koda Farms rice for Halloween.Frances Kai-Hwa Wang | Contributor

The doorbell rings. The dog barks. I turn on the porch light, open the front door, and…

No one is there. Then I look down. A package!

Ooh, I was not expecting any more Christmas presents. I bend down to pick it up, and I hear the unmistakable sound of …

Rice.

A box of rice. A very big box of rice. Who would ship me a very big box of rice?

I stagger into the house, the sound of trickling and flowing rice filling my ears, and I put the very big box down on the kitchen table. I look at the label to see who in the world would FedEx me a very big box of rice and smile when I read, “Koda Farms.

First they talked about what the black news media does in Chicago and what you need to do if you want to get your story told.

Then they talked about what’s news and what matters and then the hands went up in the room Tuesday night at the charming room in the front section of the Little Black Pearl in Hyde Park, a place where the community gathers to appreciate art and to meet.

And the room kept filling up with people from community organizations – business people and teachers and youth leaders and youngsters from high schools and just people walking by the street who looked in the window and saw the media and community gathering going on.

They saw the table of with folks from WVON and the Chicago Crusader and WBEZ and Blogging While Brown(a national organizing linking black bloggers)  and the Final Call. The gathering was sponsored by the Chicago Headline Club and the Community Media Workshop. 

The hands kept going up as people asked about the future of Chicago’s black media and whether it will survive, whether it will learn to talk to everyone – young and old and especially whether it will be the community’s voice now that the community needs it.

We’ll talk for you but we need to support us and come to us with your stories, the folks on the panel replied. So get to know us and stand by us and help us help you.,

Okay, said the people sitting in the rows that kept growing out towards the  ends of the room.

We like, they said, that but we also want to make sure you are taking advantage of our kids, training and nurturing and bringing them along so that one day they can tell black Chicago’s stories tool

And one question kept returning.

Not everyone agreed what was the root of the problem or where it was going but violence in the streets was something that would not go away.

They wanted to know what the media was going to do about the problem. Or what could it do?

Couldn’t the news media get together, the bloggers and the news papers and the radio stations and the youth, couldn’t they plan ahead and  take a week to tell the story of what black Chicago is doing about the violence and what it thinks about the toll and what it wants done.

Yes, the media folks said. Yes, they could.

And, some wondered, couldn’t they meet in another 30 days to see what came out of this meeting, a meeting that afterwards  some said they hadn’t seen in a long time. And yes they said they would.

And they kept talking in the room that was as full as could be until they turned out the lights and Alden Loury, president elect of the headline club thanked everyone and urged the talk to keep on in the coming weeks and months, simply because it was late and they needed to close up and  not because the energy or the passion or the commitment was gone.

steve@chicagoistheworld.org

That’s why it’s important to figure out how to do the kind of reporting that shows you are your community’s voice.

So, here’s a gathering worth attending, if not just for inspiration sake.

The Better Government Association is holding a session Wednesday, May 4 · 2:30pm – 3:30pm, at 111 E. Pearson — Regents Hall at Loyola University Chicago, IL You can watch online – www.bettergov.org or show up. They’ve invited some of the top investigative reporters in Chicago and one of them is Natalie Moore, WBEZ’s South Side Bureau Chief.
	RSVP at http://bgaroundtablemay4.e And if you’ve been taking part in the monthly investigative workshops I’ve been holding, our next one is Saturday, May 21 from 9 to noon at our offices, 218 S. Wabash, 7th floor. We’ll be talking about how to keep going when everything seems to go wrong with your reporting. This is a free workshop for ethnic news media. And I was struck this weekend by the words of Monsour Tadrous, publisher of al Moustaqbil newspaper (the Future), Chicago’s only Arab language newspaper, who, speaking at a conference in Detroit of Arab-American journalists this weekend, said, “A community without a voice is not a community.” Speaking of voices, the Mothers for Peace (Madres Por la Paz) of the Back of the Yard neighborhood will hold a 5 k March for Peace on Saturday May 14th starting at 10 am. It’s getting warm now. Folks are outdoors and many don’t want to see violence flow again in the streets. So join the walk if you care. The details are on the facebook page for our We Are Not Alone – No Estamos Solos project. It begins at Precious Blood Center, 5114 S. Elizabeth St, our campaign to tell the stories about what people are doing to counter youth violence. And finally for those who took part in a great investigative reporting session by Doug Haddix of the Investigative Reporters and Editors, here are the links he relied upon; http://www.mediafire.com/?xmr861ocslfm9 paz Steve@newstips.org -

A new and different voice at WVON, Lenny McAllister is convinced he is changing talk radio for the better. McAllister’s goal is to focus on the issues and talk about things people want to talk about as well as things that need to be addressed. But he is not just focused on issues in the Black community. He’s interested in issues that affect the world as well and believes that in moving toward an integrated conversation, he may help change the way race is viewed.

“If we come with the same racial dynamics that we have had for decades, we are going to get left out,” explained McAllister, who anchors the 5 am slot at WVON Radio (1690). An anchor on Chicago’s premier Black talk radio, he is a member of a rising number of young conservatives, especially in the Black community, where such views are heard more often today. McAllister’s career started as an activist in his hometown of Pittsburgh working with youth through grassroots activism. He says, “You can do as much as you want there, but if you are not impacting the laws, nothing changes.” This led to his career move toward politics. His first major move in politics began when he was invited to the 2008 Republican convention in Washington, DC.

He started writing for the Root, an online magazine of the Washington Post, which focuses on Black news. From there the Washington Post asked him to host a daily chat room from 12-1 discussing the 2008 election. This was controversial because McAllister is a Republican and then-Sen. Barack Obama was the leading candidate on the Democratic side. CNN was in the chat room and they were impressed by McAllister so they wanted to interview him.

After the convention McAllister, who was living in North Carolina at this time, went back home to his local FOX station and pitched himself as a possible commentator on the election. He thought he had a voice that needed to be heard. And so, he approached Fox, saying they needed someone like him. “You don’t have a Black moderate conservative doing political commentary on your airwaves, I could fit.” With no previous television experience McAllister began doing political commentary for Fox North Carolina. He also was writing for various publications and this became the launch of career in news media. He continues making appearances on CNN and other media outlets; online, radio and television sharing his views and opinions for the world to hear, in hopes of making a difference.

McAllister, 39, has seen his fair share of challenges as well. Starting off as a history major at Davison College in North Carolina, he knew he wanted to become an attorney, but he didn’t know how. He felt lost in his path. He was facing racial challenges at school and challenges at home. His parents had recently divorced after 30 years and his dad had lost his job.

He had to become a parent for his younger siblings, helping his sister make her way through college and his brother to finish high school. When both his parents became ill McAllister knew where he needed to be. After three years of school, he took a break to help support his family. But he also was fleeing from what he considered to be a life threatening situation at Davison, where racial tensions were running high. Soon after he decided to take his break, he married and became a father to his first child at the age of 21. He had to begun working full time to support his family and his new born child. During this time his dreams seemed almost out of reach.

After eight years he came back to Davison with a new mindset. He was determined to defeat his challenges and to graduate. He felt strengthened by his life experiences, and didn’t face the same problems in school as before. His first marriage failed, but then he met his current wife whom had had known before as a fellow student in college. Just as he talks about overcoming his obstacles in life, he makes the same point on his talk show. That is, he is a believer in standing up, making a difference and being yourself.

“If there is one thing, I want people to think differently, act differently, and make the world look differently, and make all those differences be elevations of where we are now,” he says. “Whether, we are talking about political matters, social matters, current events, school, education, violence, communities or whatever.”

Ivana Hester is an intern for the Community Media Workshop and wrote this article for the Chicago Crusader

http://www.chicagocrusader.com/news-detail.aspx?cityID=1&typeID=1&newsid=901

“He was killed trying to do what we are trying to do – to defend the rights of workers and labor and the NAACP stands ready to press this issue,” said the Rev. Nelson B. Rivers 3rd of the NAACP at a press conference on Tuesday.

Mario Ramirez, a worker at a manufacturing company and leader with Voces de la Frontera Worker Centerin Milwaukee (an affiliate of Interfaith Worker Justice), spoke about being an immigrant from Guatemala and appreciating the struggle that has taken place for workers and immigrants in the U.S.

So, if you planning a story about the Rev. King’s legacy, or the political battles that have engulfed unions and, in turn, minorities, or you are thinking about how Latino workers fit into the political fervent over workers’ rights today, here is a chance to do so. You can plan ahead for a story or cover one of the events. For information about what is happening in the Chicago area, contact Danny Postel at Interfaith Worker Justice, 773 728 8400, ex 24 or dpostel@iwjorg

On redistricting in Illinois

One of our top interns last year wrote a story about the severe overcrowding and lack of public facilities facing Chinese who live in a greatly expanded Chinatown. Problem was, nobody seemed to be listening to the people who want help. Especially the politicians serving the community.

When we held our election briefings, the problem came up again.  So did the way shifting racial patterns have left many Latino communities voiceless when their numbers demand that they have a larger voice.

The bottom line is redistricting is a critical story to many and the ethnic news media needs to pay attention.

Steve

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LaRaza and the Impre Media group offer us a good example of how to report this changes locally and nationally for the newspaper chain. They combine stories with data and a national presentation as well. http://www.imprecenso.com/censo-2010/index.php

Here the growth of Latinos in the suburbs is significant. And Fabiola Pomerada once again has provided us with truly top notch journalism, making a story about numbers personal and important in her stories in La Raza.

She followed up with a well presented two page spread recently about the growth of anti-immigrant legislation across the Midwest.

This is exactly what the ethnic news media news to do. It needs to make its news compelling and personal and to speak directly to its community.

If you are interested in how to make census figures into larger and more investigative stories, you are welcome to join the workshop I’m holding tomorrow, Saturday, March 26th from 9 am to noon at our offices at 218 S. Wabash, 7th floor, Chicago. We’ll be looking, with the help of the Heartland Alliance, at the most important figures about Chicago’s black, Latino and immigrant communities.

Steve

The Workshop’s ethnic news media project is looking for interns. The work will range from journalism workshops to writing for the project’s website to meetings with Chicago’s vastly diverse ethnic news media to taking part in a community effort to promote a different kind of coverage of violence.

To apply or find out more about Community Media Workshop’s open positions, click here.

Here are two that  raise important questions for the ethnic news media.

How do we translate these national stories into local stories? How do we keep these stories personal and alive in our communities with good reporting and writing?

Take the case of the undocumented youngsters who dared to come out not long ago about their uncertain fate in the US.

The next step in reporting is to see what has happened to these youths. What has been their impact? What are they planning next? Is there anyone joining them? Are they the freedom riders of our era?

The Lawndale News filled its front page recently with a picture of a demonstration by these youngsters and then followed up inside with a story about one young Colombian who has spent much of his life here – without papers. What will happen to him?

I hope they will follow the story and his story and answer some of the questions we need to know about what’s happening.

Indeed, the administration, according to news reports, apparently has stepped back from deportations of some youths. Is that what is happening here and who are the youths and how have their efforts made a difference?

Then there is the uproar about the mosque in New York City. But this story reaches far beyond. It touches the resistance that Muslims here and elsewhere have faced when they have sought to build their houses of worship.

It is caught up in the talk on the air and on streets and in homes, the talk that paints Muslims in a unwelcoming profile. But there are also voices that speak out against such intolerance and these voices need to be heard too.

And so, now during the Muslim holy holiday of Ramadan, it seems time to write about how Islam and Muslims are part of our community; about how Christians, Jews, Bahais, Buddhists and others live side by side with Muslims; and about how Muslims find themselves in Chicago and the US today.

It’s a story that that strikes me as needing to be told not only by the ethnic news media that serves our Muslim communities. So, too, I hope that the ethnic news media that serves the Chicago area’s Muslims will not shy away from writing and reporting on a story that involves pain as well as hope.

Here’s an item from the Chicago Tribune, pointing out Illinois politicians’ views on the issue:

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/religion_theseeker/2010/08/debate-about-mosque-near-ground-zero-spreads-to-illinois.html#tp

For my Muslim friends, I say, Ramadan Kareem, which I loosely translate as offering my hopes for a joyous and meaningful holiday.

Steve@newstips.org